12 Thought Provoking Quotes From My Reading List

My new years resolutions for this year were really simple. Cut the use of plastic bags, and read at least one book a month. I ended up with a long stretch of open time, and was able to get through A LOT more content than I originally anticipated. It’s a brand new habit for me, but I’ve started writing down some of my favourite quotes from books, podcasts, and wherever else I see them.

Here are some of my favourite thought provoking excerpts from the year so far:

“You can ignore reality, but you cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.”

-AYN RAND

“the reality is that you can only know as much depth, happiness, and success in your life as you can know vulnerability. If you won’t ask a girl or a guy out on a date, you won’t get rejected, but you won’t fall in love either. If you don’t apply for the job, then you won’t get the position you want. If you don’t try to start your own business, then you’ll never be the entrepreneur you always dreamed of being.”

“There is a huge value placed in our world on doing what everyone else is doing and thinking as everyone else is thinking.”

“You and everyone you know are going to be dead soon. And in the short amount of time between here and there, you have a limited amount of fucks to give. Very few, in fact. And if you go around giving a fuck about everything and everyone without conscious thought or choice — well, then you’re going to get fucked.”

“Decision-making based on emotional intuition, without the aid of reason to keep it in line, pretty much always sucks. You know who bases their entire lives on their emotions? Three-year-old kids. And dogs. You know what else three-year-olds and dogs do? Shit on the carpet.”

– MARK MANSON, THE SUBTLE ART OF NOT GIVING A F*CK: A COUNTERINTUITIVE APPROACH TO LIVING A GOOD LIFE

“As people strengthened their willpower muscles in one part of their lives — in the gym, or a money management program — that strength spilled over into what they ate or how hard they worked. Once willpower became stronger, it touched everything.”

“What makes his world so hard to see clearly is not it’s strangeness, but its usualness. Familiarity can blind you too.”

“One of the unique things about the human brain is that it can do only what it thinks it can do. The minute you say, “my memory isn’t what it used to be…” you are actually training your brain to live up to your diminished expectations.

Low expectations means low results.

The first rule of super brain is that your brain is always eavesdropping on your thoughts. As it listens, it learns. If you teach it about limitation, your brain will become limited. But what happens if you do the opposite? What if you teach your brain to be unlimited?”

“In the end, it is impossible to have a great life unless it is a meaningful life. And it is very difficult to have a meaningful life without meaningful work.”

“Relax, let go, allow, and recognize that some of your desires are about how you think your world should be, rather than how it is in that moment. Become an astute observer… judge less and listen more.”